Starfleet Jedi

A cheap shot at Saxton's sink tank model, the ICS and the overanalysis of outdated VFX.

To sum up, basically, the Millenium Falcon has what they said to be low to mid megaton level shields, right?

That means the shields can actually radiate that much energy per second.

According to the sink tank model, the only way to overwhelm those shields is to actually provide enough energy to saturate the shield's buffer.
In this case, megatons of energy. Otherwise, you shouldn't hope to dent it.

Ok.

So the TIEs chasing the Millenium Falcon were doing this for what reason again?

To capture it? Why were they shooting at the ship?

To lower its shields and force Han to surrender I suppose.

The idea is that the TIE pilots couldn't know that the MF's shields were so tough, and thought they could actually defeat the shields.

Even if the truth being that they could have never been able to do so.

So basically, the fighters are firing all they got at the rebel ship.

We hear about kiloton level weaponry.

That is strange, because if a bolt would hit the hull after the shield has dropped, the ship would be... vaporized?

Anyway, those TIE fighters are firing those kiloton level bolts.

Now, please explain why when those bolts actually miss the MF and hit the asteroids, notably the big one, what happens is... nothing.

Solution:

The asteroids are shielded.

** Constructive argumentation not tolerated. **

Not only are the asteroids shielded, but they can get past shields, and of course they must be almost entirely composed of nutronium since an ISD would simple shrug off any lesser material.

They have to be made tougher than neutronium because there is real neutronium in the hulls of ISDs and we saw the command tower torn off, so there's something even tougher in them.

It's called "shit-kicker-tonium".

ISDs...cower in fear.

thought they could actually defeat the shields.

Actually, they were.
In ANH, when the Millenium Falcon is escaping from the Deathstar, after a while in the fight its shields threaten to buckle under the assault of the Tie fighters.
So I guess the Tie fighters really do have Megaton range firepower.

Also, the point you just brought up was one I brought up many years ago in a versus dabate... Which never got clarified by the SW proponents... :)
It brought a smile to my face when I read it...

No, no, no... You all have it wrong. You see, the TIE fighters could've vaporized the asteroids, but instead had their weapns dialed down as they wanted to effect the capture of the Falcon as per Lord Vader's orders.
-Mike

Ease up on the sarcasm and venom. Please.

Just bumpin' around.

Thinking about the yield of those TIE shots, they seem as harmless against rock as those missing shots fired by geonosian fighters.

I could very well be missing something here, and I apologize if I am, but in ANH, weren't the TIEs supposed to make absolutely sure that the Falcon got away, so they could lead the Death Star to the Rebel base? And if so, couldn't a case at least be made that the weapons were dialed down in case the shields did buckle?
Again, I post very rarely here and I don't pay as much attention as most of the people on the board, so please don't vaporize me if I'm missing something obvious.

Obvious point 1:

• Even if they have orders to let the Falcon get away, the forged chase has still to seem believable to convince the crew of the Falcon, that the TIE pilots have really tried to stop them. That put limits to how far they could reduce their weapons power because it would be suspicious if a shoot, that is supposed to be Hiroshima level, has not even close that energy.

Obvious point 2:

• In ANH, the TIEs haven't shoot at rocks. That was TESB. And in that scene, the TIEs weren't supposed to let the Falcon got away.

Obvious point 3:

• Even if they have dialed down their weapons power while chasing the Falcon in the asteroid field to ensure that they don't destroy the Falcon accidentally , there are logical limits. The Falcon has shields and if they wanted to capture the Falcon, they must have their weapons energy at least as high as necessary to overwhelm the shields and damage the Falcon as much that it isn't able to escape. Weapons fire, that isn't able to effect the asteroids discernable, has to be very weak and wouldn't be able to overwhelm shields, if they would be as strong, as some Star Wars fans are saying. It would be as if one would try to capture a modern tank by throwing dabbers: absolutely useless. The logical conclusion is therefore that either the TIE pilots are stupid and are trying to capture the tank by throwing dappers or that they have dialed their weaopns power down only so far as necessary to not destroy the Falcon accidentally but still high enough to overwhelm her shields. In the later case, shields, that can be overwhelmed with such weak weapons power can't be as strong, as Star Wars fans are saying.

mojo wrote:I could very well be missing something here, and I apologize if I am, but in ANH, weren't the TIEs supposed to make absolutely sure that the Falcon got away, so they could lead the Death Star to the Rebel base? And if so, couldn't a case at least be made that the weapons were dialed down in case the shields did buckle?
Again, I post very rarely here and I don't pay as much attention as most of the people on the board, so please don't vaporize me if I'm missing something obvious.

There's no evidence in TESB that the imperials wanted to let the rebels flee. On the contrary, they precisely wanted to capture them. Hence the pursuit, the ISDs in the asteroid field and the bounty hunters. Quite a program.

Now, if the Imps dialed down the weapons in case the shield would collapse, and leave the hull unprotected, it's precisely because they (the Imps) do think that such a risk does exist.
Han is supposed to well know what the most standard imperial ship is capable of in terms of weapons. So the weapons would need to be set to a level that seems to be a menace, but not too menaceful either.
It cannot be set to a pathetic level which Han will never buy. Point being, following that trail of logic, with enough insistance, those assumed watered TIE shots could still damage the MF's shields within a reasonable amount of time.

Unless you come from SDN, no one here is going to buy the idea that the TIEs can fire kilotons of energy, nor that the Millenium Falcon's shields can withstand megatons of energy, or her hull deal with kilotons of energy.
ROTS has all the evidence that even decidely very subkiloton shots can pierce the armour, even on the thickest part, of Venators and CIS warships (which just highlights how much those ships rely on shields).
If you'd follow SDN, it would mean that the MF is a better warship than a Venator. Uh-huh. You'd also need to ignore ROTS in favour of some other inferior sources.
They say the MF can cope with megaton levels of energy. Even if the TIE dialed their weapons down to the high gigajoule level, it would really take a hell of a time to threaten the shields, and any missing shot would blow huge chunks of asteroids up.

Mind you, they have a similar claim about the Slave I's main cannons, again pretending kiloton level shots, where the film clearly show nothing of that, and the missing shots just fragment small volumes of rock. That's for the main cannons of a hot rod ship trying to shoot down a Jedi and his own fighter.
We're not talking about the god awful expandable and standardized TIE fighters.

I agree with Wilga:

#1 would logically show that there's nothing such as kiloton level shots fired by TIEs.
In fact, some of the EU actually makes it a fact that kiloton level shots is what capital ships exchange during fierce battles (they explicitely mention terajoules, which is kilotons).

#2 is absolutely correct as far as I'm concerned.

#3 the point is valid, safe that not all fans of SW say that, thank Pete.

My apologies. I must not have read carefully enough, because I thought we were talking about the MF's escape from the Death Star in ANH. I wouldn't have bothered with what I posted if I'd known you were talking about the asteroid thing in ESB.

Even if the shots in ANH were dialed down, we saw clear evidence that the combined attacks, or even a single strafing run by a single TIE was enough to strain the Falcon's shields (the ship shakes noticably, lights go out temporarily, systems overload/fail, fires and one small explosion).

The TESB chase is quite different, where there is little to suggest that the TIE were holding much back, and while I was watching the scene again where the Falcon and two TIEs skim the floor of the big asteroid's crater, at time index 39:52-44, one of the TIE misses the Falcon and hits a small peak with several laser bolts which sends up a bunch of little red sparkles, but the peak itself appears largely undamaged by the volley. Before that the TIEs fire shots that strafe the surface of the big asteroid, but there is no sign of debris or cratering, just small, bright flashes.
-Mike